Sandy Point Island

Sandy Point Island (more commonly referred to as Sandy Point) is a 35-acre island in Little Narragansett Bay. Once an extension of Napatree Point, Sandy Point is now its own entity. The 1938 Hurricane separated the peninsula, leaving Sandy Point a mile-long island and Napatree Point a shorter peninsula, still attached to the mainland.

The small island was made from the same longshore drift that created Napatree Point. The two pieces of land were one until the 1938 Hurricane tore several channels in the peninsula. The result was the separation of Napatree at the elbow, making Sandy Point an island. The land is low-lying and nearly all sand, aside from a few trees.

The 35-acre island is one mile long, and is about one half mile north of Napatree Point. Although the connection between the two has been broken, the waves break at the point where the peninsula once was. The underwater remains of the peninsula makes the area dangerous for many boaters.

Sandy Point was once the farthest extension of Napatree Point, a small peninsula off of Watch Hill, Rhode Island. It was covered in trees for many years. Once the region was struck with the Great September Gale of 1815, the trees were all destroyed. After this event, it took on its current form, a coastal beach.

It was attached to Napatree Point until the 1938 Hurricane made landfall on the Northeastern United States. When the hurricane struck the coast, it cut several channels into the peninsula. One of those channels broke Sandy Point away from Napatree, and to this day it remains an island, detached from the mainland.

In 1940, Sandy Point was deeded to Alfred Gildersleeve of Stonington, Connecticut. The Guildersleeve family gave Sandy Point to the Avalonia Land Conservancy in 1982 to be protected and used as a nature preserve.

Sandy Point is now divided between two states. Of the 35-acre island, 30 of those acres belong to the state of Rhode Island. The remaining five acres, the northernmost five, are a part of the Town of Stonington, New London County, in the state of Connecticut. Sandy Point is recognized as a village of the Town of Westerly, in Washington County, Rhode Island.

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Wikipedia